Workplace injury and illness, safety engineering, economics and social capital

Abstract

Throughout this past century, numerous high-profile workplace disasters occurred, some of which are listed in Table 13.1. These do not include some of the large energy industry disasters that caused longterm environmental damages, such as: the sinking of the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker offthe coast of France in 1978, which was the largest oil spill of its kind in history; the partial-meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant in 1979; the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986; the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill of 1989 in Alaska; and the recent Fukushima I nuclear plant disaster in 2011. Thus, many workplace accidents take a great human toll, as well as an environmental toll. In terms of the human toll part of the equation, as noted by Smith and Carayon (2011), even though the rates of workplace injuries and deaths in the United States have been declining ever since the Bureau of Labor Statistics first began to collect such data in 1972, the sheer numbers remain quite high, and they highlight the fact that improvements in workplace safety and illness are still needed. For example, the 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed an incidence rate of 3.5 cases per 100 workers per year for nonfatal occupational injury and illness, as well as a total of 4,547 fatal workplace injuries. Moreover, in 2007, 5,488 US workers died from workplace injuries. In that same year, an estimated 49,000 deaths were attributed to work-related diseases. In addition, it was estimated that four million workers had nonfatal work-related injury or illnesses, and about half of those required a job transfer, restricted work, or time away from their jobs. In 2004, approximately 3.4 million workers received treatment at hospital emergency departments because of a work-related injury, and about 80,000 were hospitalized (CDC/NIOSH, 2004).